Biden: Impeachment inquiry should be dropped after key source was indicted

[bamnutsak]

Alexander Smirnov indictment

 

It's a good read.

 

Comer sure knows how to pick 'em.

 

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24429120-240214-smirnov-indictment

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mm38AE3OSQ

 

Edited February 21 by bamnutsak

[heybruce]

13 hours ago, bamnutsak said:

Alexander Smirnov, a witting Russian agent peddling disinformation to the Putin wing of the Republican party.

 

James Comer a useful idiot? Who could have guessed?

That may be the most concise and accurate summary of the current situation that can be crafted.  Well done.

[radiochaser]

23 hours ago, Danderman123 said:

The Steele dossier was never intended as a source of facts, it was compiled as a collection of rumors about Trump, funded by Republicans. It was just raw data.

 

It happens that a significant fraction of those rumors were true.

This is the first that I have read, that the steele dossier was funded by republicans.
Perhaps you should inform AP.   But then, perhaps some of those RINO's (who I belive are moderate democrats) were involved too.!

 

NEW YORK (AP) — Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee have agreed to pay $113,000 to settle a Federal Election Commission investigation into whether they violated campaign finance law by misreporting spending on research that eventually became the infamous Steele dossier.

That’s according to documents sent Tuesday to the Coolidge Reagan Foundation, which had filed an administrative complaint in 2018 accusing the Democrats of misreporting payments made to a law firm during the 2016 campaign to obscure the spending.

 

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-2022-midterm-elections-business-elections-presidential-elections-5468774d18e8c46f81b55e9260b13e93

[radiochaser]

11 hours ago, candide said:

"ANDREW C. MCCARTHY is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of BALL OF COLLUSION: THE PLOT TO RIG AN ELECTION AND DESTROY A PRESIDENCY" 😆

 

Anyway, the IG investigation confirmed the Russia investigation was properly predicated.

OK, my reading comprehension is failing me here.   What does "properly predicated" mean in your sentence?

[candide]

8 minutes ago, radiochaser said:

OK, my reading comprehension is failing me here.   What does "properly predicated" mean in your sentence?

It means the investigation was justified.

[radiochaser]

14 hours ago, placeholder said:

 

What the author of this piece doesn't mention is that Mueller had many other possible charges against Trump but was precluded from filing them because of Justice Dept policy that a sitting President can't be prosecuted.

Might be like that with biden not being prosecuted for keeping unsecured classified documents, something I could be in prison for still, if I had done what he did, having had access to extremely sensitive stuff.   That was scary stuff.   We had classified document compartments like bank vaults.  If you were caught in one, by yourself, without a second person in there, you were arrested and subject to imprisonment!

Have you ever used or tried to access a top secret level, secure, filing cabinet, that refuses to open, even when you have the correct combination or even seen one?   A much more secure location to store classified documents than a cardboard box or car in a garage, if what I have heard reported about in biden's case (I have not tried to verify the accuracy of those statements).


 

[radiochaser]

14 hours ago, placeholder said:

As has been repeatedlly pointed out and to no avail, at least in the case of some such as yourself, both the Inspector General of the Justice Dept and John Durham have acknowledged that the investigation of Trump was not predicated on the Steele Dossier.

Yet, were there not several FISA warrants issued to investigate the Trump campaign based on that document?

Edited February 21 by radiochaser

[radiochaser]

4 minutes ago, candide said:

It means the investigation was justified.

Thank you for that explanation.   

[radiochaser]

On 2/21/2024 at 11:26 AM, placeholder said:

As has been repeatedlly pointed out and to no avail, at least in the case of some such as yourself, both the Inspector General of the Justice Dept and John Durham have acknowledged that the investigation of Trump was not predicated on the Steele Dossier.

There is this too.

The FBI refrained from launching a FISA warrant request until it came into possession of a dossier from Christopher Steele, a former British intelligent agent. The Steele dossier played  "a central and essential role in the decision by FBI [Office of General Counsel] to support the request for FISA surveillance targeting Carter Page, as well as the FBI's ultimate decision to seek the FISA order," the IG report concluded. The FBI "drew almost entirely" from the Steele dossier to prove a “well-developed conspiracy” between Russians and the Trump campaign. The IG found that FBI agents were “unable to corroborate any of the specific substantive allegations against Carter Page” in the Steele dossier but the FBI relied on Steele’s allegations regardless.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/12/10/ig-report-fbi-fisa-abuse-secret-court-trump-campaign-column/4383722002/

[candide]

32 minutes ago, radiochaser said:

Thank you for that explanation.   

That's the exact word used in the report.

[candide]

14 hours ago, radiochaser said:

There is this too.

The FBI refrained from launching a FISA warrant request until it came into possession of a dossier from Christopher Steele, a former British intelligent agent. The Steele dossier played  "a central and essential role in the decision by FBI [Office of General Counsel] to support the request for FISA surveillance targeting Carter Page, as well as the FBI's ultimate decision to seek the FISA order," the IG report concluded. The FBI "drew almost entirely" from the Steele dossier to prove a “well-developed conspiracy” between Russians and the Trump campaign. The IG found that FBI agents were “unable to corroborate any of the specific substantive allegations against Carter Page” in the Steele dossier but the FBI relied on Steele’s allegations regardless.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/12/10/ig-report-fbi-fisa-abuse-secret-court-trump-campaign-column/4383722002/

Exact. It played a role in the renewals of warrants about Carter Page.

[Danderman123]

1 hour ago, radiochaser said:

This is the first that I have read, that the steele dossier was funded by republicans.
Perhaps you should inform AP.   

 

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steele_dossier

 

The opposition research conducted by Fusion GPS on Donald Trump was in two distinct operations, each with a different client. First were the Republicans, funded by The Washington Free Beacon. Then came the Democrats, funded by the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

[Danderman123]

1 hour ago, radiochaser said:

Yet, were there not several FISA warrants issued to investigate the Trump campaign based on that document?

I hope you remember that all of this was investigated by John Durham, a Special Counsel.

 

Please refer to his report to refresh your memory.

[Danderman123]

41 minutes ago, candide said:

Exact. It played a role in the renewals of warrants about Carter Page.

The Carter Page stuff was a fiasco. It's not widely reported what happened, but its not a secret.

 

Carter Page indeed did a lot of bad stuff regarding Trump and Russia, but suffered no penalties. Because he was a CIA informant. The CIA wanted to know if there was any hanky panky between Trump and Russia. They got their info, and Carter Page moved on.

 

The FBI didn't know this at the time.

[Danderman123]

On 2/18/2024 at 8:36 PM, Skipalongcassidy said:

 

I need some analysis by you.

 

It's been revealed that the Biden impeachment effort was aided by a Russian disinformation campaign.

 

My question is: why would the Russians help Trump by assisting with the impeachment of Biden?

[radiochaser]

2 hours ago, candide said:

Exact. It played a role in the renewals of warrants about Carter Page.

And the Trump campaign, which included others as well as Trump, since the dossier was about Trump, and without Trump, there is no Trump campaign to have been investigated!

[radiochaser]

1 hour ago, Danderman123 said:

I need some analysis by you.

 

It's been revealed that the Biden impeachment effort was aided by a Russian disinformation campaign.

 

My question is: why would the Russians help Trump by assisting with the impeachment of Biden?

Perhaps it is to the benefit of russia and putin,, regardless if there is any benefit to Trump, if there is any.  
The russians are in this to benifit their country.  They don't care who may gain from their efforts, if any. 

[Danderman123]

6 minutes ago, radiochaser said:

Perhaps it is to the benefit of russia and putin,, regardless if there is any benefit to Trump, if there is any.  
The russians are in this to benifit their country.  They don't care who may gain from their efforts, if any. 

You don't think Biden getting impeached helps Trump?

 

If not, why does Trump demand Biden get impeached?

 

Spoiler alert: Biden getting impeached would help Trump get elected. That's why the Republicans have been working impeachment for months.

Edited February 21 by Danderman123

[Danderman123]

12 minutes ago, radiochaser said:

And the Trump campaign, which included others as well as Trump, since the dossier was about Trump, and without Trump, there is no Trump campaign to have been investigated!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/us/politics/how-fbi-russia-investigation-began-george-papadopoulos.html

 

Papadopoulos brag to Australian diplomat was key factor in FBI's Russia probe: report

 

"An Australian diplomat's tip appears to have helped persuade the FBI to investigate Russian meddling in the U.S. election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign, The New York Times reported."

Edited February 21 by Danderman123

[Walker88]

4 hours ago, radiochaser said:

Might be like that with biden not being prosecuted for keeping unsecured classified documents, something I could be in prison for still, if I had done what he did, having had access to extremely sensitive stuff.   That was scary stuff.   We had classified document compartments like bank vaults.  If you were caught in one, by yourself, without a second person in there, you were arrested and subject to imprisonment!

Have you ever used or tried to access a top secret level, secure, filing cabinet, that refuses to open, even when you have the correct combination or even seen one?   A much more secure location to store classified documents than a cardboard box or car in a garage, if what I have heard reported about in biden's case (I have not tried to verify the accuracy of those statements).


 

Tell everyone where you had access.

 

What you say about being in a vault by oneself is not true in the agencies handling the most sensitive material, CIA, DNI and NSA.

 

If you really had any sort of high level clearance, you would know the damage done, not by the mildly sensitive documents Pence and Biden had, but the TS, SCI, SAP, SITK, Codeword, HCS and RD documents trump had in places in his club, a club where anyone with $200K can join. MSS agents did join.

 

You would also know the procedure when the possibility of exposure must be considered and a damage assessment done. You would also know what happens when documents classified HCS are found to be in the public domain, such as at trump's club. Oh, and you would know even a POTUS does not have a need to know what's in HCS documents, much less steal them and takie them to his club. trump should not even have had those while still serving. THose had to have been given to him by one of his two lackeys appointed to DNI...Grenell or Ratcliffe. No way Coates would have given him things like that, nor Gina Haspel. Source security comes before anything.

Edited February 21 by Walker88

[Danderman123]

4 hours ago, radiochaser said:

Might be like that with biden not being prosecuted for keeping unsecured classified documents, something I could be in prison for still, if I had done what he did, having had access to extremely sensitive stuff.   That was scary stuff.   We had classified document compartments like bank vaults.  If you were caught in one, by yourself, without a second person in there, you were arrested and subject to imprisonment!

Have you ever used or tried to access a top secret level, secure, filing cabinet, that refuses to open, even when you have the correct combination or even seen one?   A much more secure location to store classified documents than a cardboard box or car in a garage, if what I have heard reported about in biden's case (I have not tried to verify the accuracy of those statements).


 

Much of the classified documents in Biden's possession were handwritten notes, which Biden thought were his to keep. When alerted that his notes were classified, Biden returned them immediately.

[Walker88]

2 minutes ago, Danderman123 said:

Much of the classified documents in Biden's possession were handwritten notes, which Biden thought were his to keep. When alerted that his notes were classified, Biden returned them immediately.

I think he's a posseur, and at best worked at a defense contractor. His statements indicate a lack of knowledge about how truly sensitive documents are handled, and he has no clue why the trump theft is infinitely more serious (and expensive) than the Biden and Pence situations.

[Walker88]

15 minutes ago, Walker88 said:

Tell everyone where you had access.

 

What you say about being in a vault by oneself is not true in the agencies handling the most sensitive material, CIA, DNI and NSA.

 

If you really had any sort of high level clearance, you would know the damage done, not by the mildly sensitive documents Pence and Biden had, but the TS, SCI, SAP, SITK, Codeword, HCS and RD documents trump had in places in his club, a club where anyone with $200K can join. MSS agents did join.

 

You would also know the procedure when the possibility of exposure must be considered and a damage assessment done. You would also know what happens when documents classified HCS are found to be in the public domain, such as at trump's club. Oh, and you would know even a POTUS does not have a need to know what's in HCS documents, much less steal them and takie them to his club. trump should not even have had those while still serving. THose had to have been given to him by one of his two lackeys appointed to DNI...Grenell or Ratcliffe. No way Coates would have given him things like that, nor Gina Haspel. Source security comes before anything.

Any case officer would get approval, and any Chief of Station would be delighted to approve a $200K membership to a club where the owner kept boxes of highly classified documents, and who had a big mouth and a small ego, ripe for exploitation. That's the best target any case officer would get in an entire career.

 

Just as every major intel service set up listening posts around the White House while trump was POTUS (and used his non-secure phone to call people he wanted to boast to), intel services are all over and around Mar-a-Lago. Russia, China, Iran, Israel, North Korea and others all gained intel in DC while trump sat in the WH.

[thaibeachlovers]

3 hours ago, Danderman123 said:

The Carter Page stuff was a fiasco. It's not widely reported what happened, but its not a secret.

 

Carter Page indeed did a lot of bad stuff regarding Trump and Russia, but suffered no penalties. Because he was a CIA informant. The CIA wanted to know if there was any hanky panky between Trump and Russia. They got their info, and Carter Page moved on.

 

The FBI didn't know this at the time.

As usual not a shred of evidence from you to support that. For someone that has asked other posters to provide evidence you sure have a disdain for following your own advice.

[thaibeachlovers]

8 minutes ago, Walker88 said:

Any case officer would get approval, and any Chief of Station would be delighted to approve a $200K membership to a club where the owner kept boxes of highly classified documents, and who had a big mouth and a small ego, ripe for exploitation. That's the best target any case officer would get in an entire career.

 

Just as every major intel service set up listening posts around the White House while trump was POTUS (and used his non-secure phone to call people he wanted to boast to), intel services are all over and around Mar-a-Lago. Russia, China, Iran, Israel, North Korea and others all gained intel in DC while trump sat in the WH.

Some actual proof of that would be in order. No proof and you are making it up.

[thaibeachlovers]

23 minutes ago, stevenl said:

From Jay Kuo.

 

Yesterday, another Russian nesting doll emerged. In support of its request to hold Smirnov pending trial, the government revealed that Smirnov had held several high level meetings with Russian intelligence officers in 2023 and was being used as a conduit for disinformation to disrupt the 2024 election. 

That’s right: The same guy Reps. Comer and Jordan and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) pumped as a reason to go after Biden for bribery turned out to be a Russian intelligence tool. 

Now the question is, were GOP leaders just useful idiots for Russian election interference, or did they know, like Bill Barr and his cronies apparently did, that Smirnov’s claims were false, but amplified them anyway to dirty up Biden?

No proof, so it's just your opinion.

[thaibeachlovers]

28 minutes ago, Danderman123 said:

Much of the classified documents in Biden's possession were handwritten notes, which Biden thought were his to keep. When alerted that his notes were classified, Biden returned them immediately.

Proof of that? Making it up again?

[Danderman123]

3 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

As usual not a shred of evidence from you to support that. For someone that has asked other posters to provide evidence you sure have a disdain for following your own advice.

You can argue with FOX News.

 

Carter Page says he was 'never paid one cent' for serving as CIA, FBI informant

[Danderman123]

1 minute ago, thaibeachlovers said:

No proof, so it's just your opinion.

No proof of what?

 

Smirnov has admitted working for Russian intelligence.

[stevenl]

23 minutes ago, Walker88 said:

Smirnov is lucky he's in custody, and I suspect---speculate---that he will cooperate provided he can remain in custody and given protection.

 

The reason is he violated two kinds of sanctions dealing with Iran. One is he brokered oil sales. For that he'd get a slap on the wrist. The other is he tried to broker arms sales to Iran. That will get him on the screen of Mossad, and Mossad has their own particular way of dealing with such scoundrels.

I am more interested in the trump administration already knowing he was lying, and after that the republican senate at best being used by Russian intelligence.